In a nutshell, there's
three main points to Mr Wylie's story:• • People
were targeted with political ads individually
tailored to their personality to manipulate them to
get them to vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 election

•
The data was obtained via a personality test on Facebook and
pulled in information about what their friends liked
without their explicit permission

• The same
technique has potentially been applied to elections
across the world, with the company selling its
services to the highest bidder

Mr Wylie said the data was
collected very quickly. About 320,000 people used the
personality quiz app on Facebook "thisismydigitallife"
created by Global Science Research (GSR), run by
Cambridge-based academic Aleksandr Kogan.

Mr Wylie said
the data of about 50 million users was harvested in about
two months by accessing those users' friends networks.

He
also said the name Cambridge Analytica had nothing to do
with the Cambridge University in the UK, other than it had
an office in the town and intentionally used the name to
seem more authoritative.

Click a link to play audio (or right-click to
download) in eitherMP3 format.

UK Information
Commissioner Elizabeth Denham has said she would apply for a
warrant to search Cambridge Analytica offices, and the head
of the UK's inquiry into fake news has requested Facebook
boss Mark Zuckerberg give answers about Facebook having
previously misled it.

Mr Wylie has submitted evidence to
the UK's Information Commissioner's Office and its National
Crime Agency's cybercrime unit, The Guardian
reported.

• Here is RNZ Insight's documentary exploring Cambridge
Analytica, and social media use ahead of New Zealand's
election last year

One of Mr Trump's campaign backers,
secretive US hedge-fund billionaire and Republican donor
Robert Mercer, was Cambridge Analytica's main investor after
former Trump campaign head Steve Bannon brought the firm -
including Mr Wylie - to pitch to him.

For its part,
Cambridge Analytica has denied any wrongdoing. The firm
insisted it followed the correct procedures in obtaining and
using data.

Why it matters

The question
now is whether what Cambridge Analytica and Facebook have
each done is actually illegal, and what parts of it may just
be considered immoral.

Initially objectionable is the way
the GSR data - which Mr Wylie says has essentially formed
the basis for Cambridge Analytica's work - was
obtained.

Further concerns surround the effect on
democratic elections. Certainly, there has been spin in
political elections forever, but putting the ability to sway
public opinion into the hands of those who can pay would
seem to undermine the very basis of democracy.

Mr Wylie
told The Guardian the company was willing to subvert
elections on behalf of foreign governments. He also claimed
a Russian oil company was fully briefed by the company about
how it uses personality data to affect
elections.

Facebook's role

Facebook
shares have plummeted since the story broke, dropping 6.7
percent of its value on Monday, wiping almost $37bn from its
market value.

Mr Wylie told The Guardian no one at
Cambridge Analytica had checked if taking the data was
legal. The GSR app that was taking the data apparently had
permission to do so for "academic purposes only".

Mr Wylie
claims to have a contract between GSR and Cambridge
Analytica's parent company specifically for harvesting and
processing Facebook data.

A report in 2015 claimed the firm
was using Facebook data to support US Republican Ted
Cruz.

Mr Wylie said the only effort Facebook made to
retrieve the data after the 2015 report was to send him a
letter - months later in August 2016, some two years after
the breach took place and after he had left Cambridge
Analytica - saying the data had been illicitly obtained and
GSR "was not authorised to share or sell it".

Mr Wylie
said the letter asked the data to be deleted immediately,
tick a box saying it had been done, and send the letter back
to Facebook.

Cambridge Analytica was suspended from
Facebook on Saturday, making it harder for the company to
carry out its role.

In a statement , it said it fully
complied with Facebook's terms of service and did not hold
data from Facebook profiles.

"Global Science Research
(GSR), was contractually committed by us to only obtain data
in accordance with the UK Data Protection Act and to seek
the informed consent of each respondent. GSR was also
contractually the Data Controller (as per Section 1(1) of
the Data Protection Act) for any collected data. GSR
obtained Facebook data via an API provided by Facebook," it
said.

"When it subsequently became clear that the data had
not been obtained by GSR in line with Facebook's terms of
service, Cambridge Analytica deleted all data received from
GSR."

Mr Wylie said there were multiple copies of the
data, however, and it had been emailed in unencrypted
files.

"We did all the data. We did all the analytics.
We did all the targeting. We ran all the digital campaign
and our data informed their strategy," Mr Nix told an
undercover reporter during a meeting in a London hotel.

Mr
Nix also said he had met the then Republican presidential
candidate Donald Trump "many times" and that his firm played
a central role in the final months of the campaign.

Before
his suspension, Cambridge Analytica claimed Facebook data from GSR had
all been deleted, and was not used for Donald Trump's
campaign.

It also put out a statement saying the
interview was mischaracterised and obtained through
entrapment.

"Assessing the legality and reputational risks
associated with new projects is critical for us, and we
routinely undertake conversations with prospective clients
to try to tease out any unethical or illegal intentions. The
two Cambridge Analytica executives at the meeting humoured
these questions and actively encouraged the prospective
client to disclose his intentions. They left with grave
concerns and did not meet with him again," the statement
said.

How to protect your data on
Facebook

There are a few things to be aware of if
you want to restrict who has access to your data.

• Keep
an eye on apps, especially those which require you to log in
using your Facebook account - they often have a very wide
range of permissions and many are specifically designed to
pick up your data

• Use an ad blocker to limit
advertising

• Look at your Facebook security settings
and make sure you are aware of what is enabled. Check the
individual app settings to see whether you have given them
permission to view your friends as well as yourself

•
You can download a copy of the data Facebook holds on you,
although it is not comprehensive. There is a download button
at the bottom of the General Account Settings tab. However,
bear in mind that your data may be less secure sitting on
your laptop than it is on Facebook's servers if your device
is hacked

• You can of course, simply leave Facebook,
but the campaign group Privacy International warns that
privacy concerns extend beyond the social
network

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